That’s it, except I don’t do the wee corner bit. What I try to do is express the idea that a piece of technique at a certain place in the tune or focusing on one particular beat or upbeat in the tune will open a door in the mind which all tunes will then pass through. A style thing more than a note for note thing. Tunes will come and techniques too but to be able to play with a bit of style is the thing. That’s where the lifelong persuit comes into it… for me atleast.
Pat.
Patrick D’Arcy wrote:
What I try to do is express the idea that a piece of technique at a certain place in the tune or focusing on one particular beat or upbeat in the tune will open a door in the mind which all tunes will then pass through. A style thing more than a note for note thing. Tunes will come and techniques too but to be able to play with a bit of style is the thing
I have found this sort of thing very effective and these sorts of classes make long-term improvement in my playing.
DJones
I have only been to two schools for ups,being from the great white north of Canada,where the bears don’t play very well and the moose are hopeless:a bit like me.At one school we had the Circle of Death with a couple of beginners,a couple of intermediates and a couple of advanced students.The beginners looked mesmerised,the advanced seemed to enjoy themselves and the intermediates were all fingers and thumbs.Not a pleasant experience for me.In fact I will try to avoid the circle of death in future.The other school was completely different with individual tuition most of the time,but I have to be fair and say that there were only 3 students who were all of the same ability.I must agree with Uilliam,his method works the best, for me at any rate.
Here is a liitle trick I thought I might share at this juncture for those of you that have yet to experience the circle.
try to sit directly across from the instructor in the circle itself, that way wheather the instructor starts to her left or right you won’t have to go 1st 
Nice one Jamie ,I’ll keep that in mind.
I agree Pat, with your buffet metaphor. With piping instruction, it’s famine most of the time, so when it’s time for a feast (i.e., tionol), we really like to tie on the old nosebag. And I can say that both as a attendee, and as someone who helps organise these things: on both sides, you wonder “is there enough classroom time”?
But I originally asked the question with a different motivation in mind, driven by circumstances that perhaps not so many may experience, if you’re a typical isolated North American piper. As many of you know, we have this club in Boston, that meets once a month. Each month, a different volunteer gets an hour to teach the others, and attendance can be anywhere from 6 to 16, with a fairly wide range of experience levels, though no rank beginners. (There are several club members who lurk here regularly, myself included 
So soon enough, it’ll be my turn to teach again, and I’m dissatisfied with the Circle of Death/Ring of Fire style. Nobody pays to attend our club (except with the life-minutes they give up in frustration looking for parking in Harvard Sq, Cambridge), so there’s not that same dynamic of getting your money’s worth. I’m just interested in exploring different styles.
I like Uilliam’s suggestion (and Mick Coyne’s model as suggested by Fr D’Arcy) of a few minutes of one-on-one time. But with ten in a class, and six minutes each, what does the last guy do to kill those 54 minutes before his turn? Just flake away in the corner? That can be its own kind of torture for a beginner, and given how loud the pipes are, you need a lot of space to do it. Any ideas on how to deal with that?
Great suggestions, keep ‘em comin’.
-Frank
When I teach undergraduates (sociology, not music of any sort), I occasionally give them some task and then split them into groups to work on it together. Then I bring the class back together and we discuss the assignment. If you had a big enough space to split up the class, couldn’t you show people a tune, maybe play/record it as well as give it to them on sheet music, and show some technique, talk about the phrasing of the tune and how ornaments enhance that, etc etc and then send the students away from the circle to work on it and discuss it in pairs or groups. Then they could return, play the tune or even half the tune depending on their level, and you could talk about it some more. It might be a good strategy in a mixed-ability setting, since the beginners could see how the more advanced players interpret the tune and you could then talk about X’s style verses Y’s.
I have no idea if this would work for a piping class. It may be worth experimenting with, as it works well in other learning settings.
The strategy of a good music teacher should be to make it as fun and stress-free as possible. There’s loads of research out there (I did a search on JStor after my last post) showing negative impacts of stress on memory and learning. Different papers have different explanations for which stress-related neurotransmitters are intefering with which parts of the brain, but there is general consensus that those neurotransmitters and hormones, in some capacity or other, impair memory.
Nice one Silverspear ya see there are alternatives if’n ye only seek and search as I say…now then this is an extension of what I was saying..be a bit more lateral in thinking and not stick to something coz thats how it has been done forever even tho it is bad or can be…
The problem outlined earlier with the last student is not a problem at all coz they are free to listen to the emerging students and if they wish can share information with them and make good use of the time with a group within a group…by the time the last student goes in then the time spent waiting would have been time well spent..
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam
sorry if a little off topic.
I’m not saying this isnt true, (Im sure you have piles of research proving it)
but given that learning styles are different for each individual, this approach may work better for the keen amateur than the serious musician.
After floating between conservatories from 1982-1994, (even prior to that, since about 1976)I can honestly say that the classes where musical material was mercilessly pounded into me, OR ELSE, were the classes that I learned the most from, and I still carry these lessons with me to this day.
I personally don t go to workshops /lessons to have ‘fun’.
That’s what cruises are for.
Wow, there are uilleann piping cruises? 
Cool! 
t
The floating Tional springs to mind nearest ye will get to a cruise methinks.Sean have they stopped completely?
Uilliam
I brought one of my daughters to a pipers club meeting (seemed like a good idea at the time) and she was amazed that the Circle of Death was the way we learned a tune. Her comment was, “Isn’t that intimidating?”
I like JOBM’s Circle of fiery Death after you get over his initial comments. The first time I sat through, I didn’t know what to think; the second time was very informative, helpful and amusing at the same time.
Marie Na Grada had an interesting method. She was at the front, started with a couple of tunes, asked us which we liked. She started playing a phrase from it and then asked EVERYONE to join in. After a couple of times, you got the hang of it and then moved to the next phrase. When the A part was done, we’d all play it together ensemble. Repeat for the B part. But it does get loud! She like doing it that was because it maximized everyone’s playing time.
Dennis Brooks did more or less the same thing at the Seattle Tionol. The group was playing a tune before the lesson and he just joined in and led the tune and taught from there. One phrase he used was something like, “let’s all play a tune so we can get the reeds warm” (or something like that). I thought it was a great way to get the nerves out of the way.